


Shaking

by OccultChiffon



Category: Edna & Harvey (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure Game Logic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, First Kiss, I saw what wasn't there and I made it there, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Shameless Shipping Fic, it's about the yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29821263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccultChiffon/pseuds/OccultChiffon
Summary: What if, instead of killing the Key Master, Edna decided to take him with her like any good adventure game protagonist?
Relationships: Edna Konrad/Schlüsselmeister | Key Master
Kudos: 2





	Shaking

**Author's Note:**

> It’s Edna and Harvey. It’s Edna/Keymaster. It’s first kiss fic. I banged it out at three am when I couldn’t sleep, so, here you go.

_His hands were shaking._

The pyre that stood between the two of them burned ever higher and higher, and the updraft was causing Edna Konrad’s hair to whip around her face wildly. The embers danced, and played through the wind like the last games of a pair of children, burning in the air for only a moment, and then vanishing forever. The Keymaster still couldn’t parse why Edna had decided to take him with her to the house. Did she not understand? That he was dangerous? At any moment, he could snap- why, anything short of a loud noise could set him off. The reverend’s untimely shuffling off this mortal coil should have been enough to dissuade her. Yet, she persisted, perhaps even in the face of her stuffed compatriot’s disapproval. He couldn’t believe he was agreeing with a stuffed animal over a living, breathing person, but when that breathing, living, stubborn and beautiful person was acting so bull-headed in the face of such obvious danger, it left him with little recourse. 

The Keymaster blinked, his eyes shifting from the fire to Edna’s stoic face, and swallowed. It was another one of his problems. Edna was beautiful, especially now. Even all of her mistreatment at the hands of the doctor in the asylum couldn’t rob her of her natural pulchritude. Her violent violet locks moved like ribbons cutting through the air, and her eyes, often sweet and mischievous, were locked onto her burning past, watching the beams fall through the rotten ceiling and the moth-eaten furniture perish in the flames. Light crashed into her body, smattering reds and yellows across her face like choppy water- like the sea. Oceans of light that kept the shadows at bay and washed over him as well, enough to keep him warm in the crisp night air. His hands came up to clutch his arms, and although he hadn’t needed them to warm himself, he needed to hold himself together. The shaking that began in his hands was spreading throughout his entire body, and he felt that at any moment he would simply fall to pieces, organs and all. It was a problem of his. When there was too much noise. When there was too much freedom. When there was too much beauty.

Slowly, he took deliberate steps towards Edna. It was like plodding through mud, or clay, with his arms around him trying ever so desperately to hold on, and just, as he was within arms reach of the dastardly woman, he took his hands, and he held them out, and he trembled riotously…

“Don’t,” her voice rang true, shooting through his head and through his heart like an arrow, swift and fierce. She turned her head towards him, and he realized with a shock that she was not afraid of him. Even after what he did. Even with his hands at the level of her neck.

He swallowed. “…I’m going to hurt you.”

“No,” she said, turning her head to face him. If Harvey had anything to say, he was keeping quiet, for the moment. Edna’s mouth twitched upward, and that slight smile was suddenly there, and it made his breath catch in his throat. “You’d never hurt me.”

“That’s not true,” he said, shaking his head, his own hair flopping around his forehead. Getting bathed in the asylum was an… ordeal, especially in full body restraints. He imagined he hadn’t had a proper shower in some time. Yet another reason to get away from him, to tie him up and leave him somewhere to be found, or restrained, or, or…

Hands. He opened his eyes, unaware that they had closed, and his whole body shaking, and saw Edna’s dainty hands grasping his own with alarm. She took a precarious step closer to him, like placing a foot on a tightrope, and he tried to pull away on instinct, but the mire that had him kept his feel lodged in place. She took his hands, and fearlessly brought them to her throat, as if beckoning him. To entice him to close his hands along her slender, sloping throat… but even as his mind rushed and clashed against itself, and his body quaked so hard he thought it might shake the earth… he did not close his fingers. He breathed shallowly, half-way listening for incoming fire engines (those would be perfect to catch him and bring him back to the safety of a padded room), but terribly enraptured by his own inability to hurt Edna. Not in the church, not now. She was still smiling, and it baffled him, and his hand rose up to rest at her jaws, going from nearly throttling her to cupping her face like something precious, something he’d be afraid to break if he manhandled it.

“See?” she said, reaching up to comb the hair from his face. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

Perhaps, but he was still frightened. He still shook. He still held her. His face was contoured into an expression of confusion and anxiety. All his prior suaveness and charming debonair were gone, drained out and replaced with the fear he was finding harder and harder to place. He tried to speak, but it was altogether impossible at that moment. She had escaped, and uncovered the secrets of her past, deciding it was best to destroy the last weight that tangled her to her personal darkness in a plume of flame. Why, of all things, was he still in her life- now, of all times?

He hadn’t known he’d pulled her forward until after he’d done it. He hadn’t known what he was doing until he was finished, and by then it was too late. It was too late to take back the sudden greedy press of his lips to hers, fumbling and inexperienced. The Keymaster had never kissed anyone in his life; most of it being spent dedicated to hurting people, and the tireless attempts to not hurt people. He was hoping he was doing quite the opposite, though, his mouth moving against hers with deliberation, his body shaking like he was standing at the edge of a cliff with one foot off…

What was the most alarming thing, perhaps, in the entire moment was the way Edna’s hand swept up to his own throat and cupped the back of his head, and she kissed him back with her own imperfect motions. It made more sense for Edna to never have kissed- it was difficult when you spent ten years in an asylum, unable to explore in your formative years. So they moved together, their lips trespassing over the thresholds of their inexperience and into something wholly new. Her mouth moved away from his in scant inches, and then she pushed back, hardly giving him enough time to get his bearings, but he seemed to move on autopilot, a surge of want within him that he hadn’t known he’d been hiding rising to the fore as his lips moved against hers. Harvey was still in her other hand, dangling at her side, but he hardly cared if he could see, or what thoughts he may have been having in that instant. What mattered was that his body was pressed against Edna’s, and that he could wrap his arms around her and she could hold him tight, and keep him from unraveling. 

But he realized with a start, not until the kiss was broken- slowly, neither parties particularly keen on stopping- that his shaking had relinquished. He was left with his eyes closed, lips slightly parted, body quelled like the eye of a storm. His eyes eventually opened, and he was staring at Edna. She was staring at him, and his hand slid upwards to comb her hair from her face. A blush crept into his face, and hers in return, and suddenly her hands flew to her mouth.

“We forgot about Dr. Marcel!” she said, almost in a whisper. Something to be said, but too quiet to be of much to be alarmed about. The Keymaster looked towards the fire, which was finally drawing the attention of the rest of the village as he grabbed for her arm, and pulled her into the yard, out of sight. She showed him the loose slats in the fence where she would go on adventures with Harvey, and they moved as one, escaping from one sea into a new one.

“Not much we can do about it, now,” said the Keymaster. He held her hand, and he stopped shaking.

And he was whole.


End file.
